


The Highs are Always So High, And the Lows are the Same

by awkwardeye



Category: Girls (TV)
Genre: Drabbles, F/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-06-10 14:05:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6960088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardeye/pseuds/awkwardeye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some little drabble things about Jessa and Adam's relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. long skirts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> post break up adam and jessa meet each other on the street

She’s all wrapped up in colorful fabrics that appear endless as they fall over the curves of her form. Where a shirt flows into a skirt disappears when her hips sway. The hem of her skirt swishes around her ankles, heels clicking as she walks down the pavement much faster than usual. Like wine, she’s there and gone in a haze of elation and a tinge of bittersweet sadness and perhaps a pinch of anger. Her voice hangs in the air where she’d stood.

If Adam had any sense, he thinks he might follow her, ask her how she’s been. He almost does, too. Almost reaches out and catches her wrist and asks, forces a conversation on the foundation of a phrase. He almost calls her name, but feels its weight on his tongue and swallows it. As warm as always, sweet and bitter all at once. And then he feels it when she passes just out of reach: the aching burn of thirst blazing a trail down his throat. He wants to drink again, wants to toss back an entire bottle of whiskey on his own as he watches her leave and wonders dumbly how she forgot him so easily.

Jessa hesitates with her foot raised. Her body burns from head to toe. A single bead of sweat rolls down the side of her neck. It’s easier, she tells herself, if she ignores him. Because ignoring things always fixes them. She knows it’s stupid, a hopeless cause, but she can’t bring herself to turn around and look at Adam or say anything more to him.

“Hi,” he says to the place where she stood, shoving his hands into his pockets. He always liked the way her skirts float around her when she walks. But only when she’s walking toward him, Adam realizes, because he hates to watch Jessa leave, knowing that he might not be able to call her back. “You, uh, left something at my apartment,” Adam spits out.

Jessa almost doesn’t hear him, but she does. Though she knows it’s a lie, she stops in her tracks and takes a moment, without considering it, to really look at Adam. He’s the same Adam with too long hair and a scruffy black beard and his most likely cleanest dirty shirt. And she still wants him all the same, but there are words she can’t forget and feelings she’d rather bury. She drags her eyes away from him. “Keep it.”


	2. Hi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessa stops by Adam's apartment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is very stupid and i apologize

Adam can never hide his excitement the moment he sees her. The most he can do is bow his head while smiling, shove his hands into his pockets, and let out a classic Adam Sackler noise of embarrassment, as if Jessa is anything but happy to see his reaction to her.

Despite her overwhelming guilt, she melts a little when he forces a cool facade and greets her normally, repeating a few phrases and leaning out of his apartment door.  _ Friends _ . That’s what they are and it’s totally normal, the way he’s been looking at her for a handful of months and not at all peculiar or nerve wracking or guilt inducing. Or at least that’s what she tells herself even when she remembers the warmth of his lips on hers. “Hi,” she replies, stiff in her delivery.

“Yo,” Adam says, swaying from foot to foot.

“Hey.”

“‘Sup.”

“Hi.” Jessa’s eyes narrow.

“Hello.”

“Adam!” She invites herself in, rolling her eyes as she shoves past Adam. She’s only a few feet in when she realizes with a bit of a start that there’s no logical reason for her to be in Adam’s (the same Adam who kissed her where his ex/her best friend could have easily seen them, who is either an idiot or a genius) apartment. “I… um, ah… came to say hi.”


	3. more than like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ray asks adam if he likes jessa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh i don't even really like this chapter, but i wanted to write something because i'm on break

“Do you actually like her, Adam?” Ray asks, quietly when he hears the door close after Jessa. It’s been on his mind lately, their relationship. Not because he particularly cares about it, but because it’s always _there_ like a jacket hanging on a chair or a bottle of wine on the table. He hasn’t touched it, not because he doesn’t think he should, but because he doesn’t need to and it isn’t his to touch. And every conversation with Hannah leaves him considering Adam and Jessa in the wake of words about Fran.

“What?” Adam hums, fiddling with something on the counter. The question catches him by surprise, but he’s not one to avoid direct questioning. In truth, he likes Jessa. A lot. He can’t compare her to his past relationships, because this is nothing like his past relationships. There’s a mutual understanding they have, a shared attraction. They’re not drawn to each other by obligation, but by emotion. Of course he likes Jessa. She’s gorgeous and in her own world, the way he is. She moves without hesitation for the most part and lives to please herself, but can depend him just enough without being entirely immersed in him. Maybe she’s hard to catch and hold, but when she’s held, she makes the chase worth it. Of course he likes her. Maybe even more than likes her.

“I mean do you actually want to be with Jessa or is this your way of getting back at Hannah or something?” Ray crosses his arms over his chest and cocks an eyebrow.

“Why does everyone have to bring up Hannah?” Adam snaps. He bares his teeth and shakes his head, fingers curling into the air. “I’m not with Hannah and I haven’t been with her for a while. She has nothing to do with me and Jessa!” He catches himself before he can pass into yelling. “I like Jessa, okay? She gets excited about little shit and she cares about the shit that I like. She asks me about my day and she smells nice and she _understands_. We fit together.”

“Good for you,” Ray replies. “Stop fucking on my couch.”


	4. manipulation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the record, this isn't pro hannah/adam. i'm not against them either, just against certain aspects of their relationship the same way i don't like certain aspects of adam and jessa. also this is meant to be v platonic. also it's very early in the morning but i can't sleep and i hate life and i was watching girls and i really hate and love jessa and adam's friendship so much more than their romance. there's nothing quite like a friendship built on aa, being charged with assault and spending the day in holding, and sexual jokes.

“This is the whole reason why I set you up with her; is so I could get Ace. He’s not supposed to still want her back. He’s supposed to love me now.”

It’s not the words that surprise him, not really. Not even her tone as they come, this irritated yet betrayed twist to her usually slightly amused, constantly sarcastic and bored tone, truly surprises him. Not even the way she doesn’t look _at_ him, but _through_ him and to Ace surprises him. No, that hurts him, and _that_ is what surprises him. It’s no surprise that Jessa is using him again or anyone, really. As far as he knows, Jessa doesn’t know how to simply be friends with a person without manipulating them in some way.

Adam is hurt for a number of reasons as her words sink in like anchors in the depths of him. Mostly, he doesn’t -can’t- understand why or how she could toss his entire relationship with Hannah -as flawed and failing as it may have been- out of the window on some silly whim that she might end up with a backward asshole named after a shitty card that can equal one or the fucking world depending on the game or version of the game. Minute is the twinge of pain he feels when her voice drops and is struck by betrayal and her own thinly veiled surprise and disbelief on the last part.

 _He’s supposed to love me now_. That’s what prompts the drawn out “oh” that precedes the glance that turns into a stare when he sees eyes usually so sure of themselves seem so lacking in luster for the briefest of moments. He knows he should be running, running quickly away from Jessa who shatters everything slightly beautiful for seemingly no reason, but he sees her and can’t take his eyes from her for the longest moment because, for someone playing with his life, she looks wounded. Maybe she deserves it. And then he thinks of Hannah and how, if anyone’s going to mess with his life, it might as well be her, not Jessa or MR’s conceited ex-psycho-pet/lover. Oh, but he can’t take Hannah either, the way how she wants the world to revolve around her or the way that he feels like he can’t have a normal relationship because of her because the only recent relationship he has to compare any other to is the one with her, so rife with pain, two hurt people clinging to pain as the basis of love.

Adam feels less attached to MR, wanting to return to Hannah because she’s constant and he knows she won’t leave because she’s hopelessly in love with him and he doesn’t really know why. In the same moment, he wants to cling to Jessa in the most innocent way because, in her own selfishness, she’s just as constant as Hannah and less demanding, a bit more understanding, a bit more of a friend, and a bit less of an obligation, but so much more trouble (especially the legal kind). And using him, he reminds himself. He might as well be used by Hannah because at least she calls it love and it works so well when it works at all.


	5. Jessa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah an actual update wow but yeah I didn't really know what to write. I'm trying to come to terms with the possibility of one of my ships possibly sinking so I'm clinging to it while it's still sailing until the next season.

She finds herself wondering who she is. Who exactly is Jessa Johansson? Jessa is pretty...fucked up.  _Shit._

 __Jessa inhales slowly, glances at Adam and thinks she's a terrible human being. And he's terrible, too. Which is exactly why they're together or something like that, she thinks. She keeps thinking of Hannah whenever she looks at him, wondering how he isn't thinking about Hannah when he kisses her _fucking friend_. But that's beside the point.

The point is that Jessa and Adam are sitting in a comfortable silence and she's trying to define herself. Now, who exactly is Jessa Johansson? Jessa is an ex-addict, divorced European living in New York (filled with so many other people to be attracted to, but alas, here she is) who is dating a cherished friend's ex-true-love. No. Well, yes, but no, not really.

Adam is easy to define. He's an okay guy who does relatively shitty stuff, but swiftly shuts out anyone deemed unnecessary or detrimental. And he smells weird,?but she doesn't really care. And he moves like he's not used to his body. And he's her friend. Easily defined, like a frequently used word.

And Jessa Johansson is...a bit of an enigma to herself when she's with Adam.


	6. Smiles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im always late to the party but I just kinda found out about leaked set photos and I'm a bit sad that jessa and adam are probably not a thing anymore. I hope they're at least friends because she needs those and I'm talking about fictional characters like they're real and now I'm ashamed

When Jessa looks at Adam, she wants this to last. She doesn't want to be pushed out of his mind, off of his chest, to the edges of his life until the inevitable Adam cut off, because he comes and goes so easily, it seems, when romance enters the picture. She's so tired of being left.

"What're you looking at, freak?" Adam mutters, waving a hand in front of her face.

"Just an overgrown idiot."

"I didn't realize there was a mirror..." And then he laughs that stupid, amazing laugh that is too innocent and juvenile for an adult like Adam (who's barely an adult, but still a bit more mature than Jessa).

"You're basically a thirteen year old old virgin," Jessa replies, averting her gaze.

"So? You still like me."

"Yeah, yeah..." She tries not to, but she smiles.


End file.
